National Network for Equitable Library Service

Bernadette Inez O’Brian Schwartz is a very small girl with a very long name and a very BIG imagination! "Everyone agreed that Bernadette Inez O'Brian Schwartz was a most unusual child. Her first word was ‘Why?’ So was her second word, and then her third…"

Eve Zaremba places her street-smart heroine as the head of security in a large, urban condominium. It seems like an easy way to make a living to Helen; that is, until the body of an environmental activist turns up...

In the late 1960s Penny is the youngest of four kids, known on her street as the girl with the mean brothers. She spends all year looking forward to her summers spent at Go Home Lake, where she passes the days in a soaked bathing suit, catching frogs, and getting her daily fill of fresh air. Yet Penny's summers are far from pleasant. Her father’s weekend visits to the cottage are sporadic, and her brothers prey on her innocence in every way, while her mother offers little sympathy. But Penny holds onto a secret ambition – she’s going to be a real cowboy.

Natalie’s passion is dance, and she’s looking forward to a summer of perfecting her technique at dance camp. Plus, she’s just turned fifteen – a momentous age that means she’s now officially a grown-up. But while her mom doesn’t seem to have got the memo, Kevin, her best friend Sasha’s older brother, has. Caught up with the excitement of Kevin’s attention, their relationship quickly becomes intimate and all-consuming. Over the summer, Natalie goes from being in love and lust with Kevin to realizing that he is not the guy she thought he was.

Bernadette Inez O’Brian Schwartz is back with her friends Annie, Keisha, and Megan, aka The Lunch Bunch. In this third adventure, Bernadette finally gets the puppy she has been dreaming of for so long. She asks her Lunch Bunch friends to help out at her street's garage sale to raise money to save the animals of the rainforest. When school ends, the four friends decide to go to the same day camp. Bernadette discovers that she can indulge her love of science anywhere when the local frogs go missing and she and the other campers use “scientific method” to find out why.

Poppy is reading a story about a black cat and a witch. Suddenly, everywhere she goes she bumps into a strange-looking witch. After some deliciously scary fun, she realizes that underneath the menacing exterior is someone who deserves her friendship.

This collection features the writing of women from places as diverse as Slovakia and Portugal, India and Uruguay, Korea and Kenya, Italy and Iran. They look and think differently. They have distinctive traditions, cultures and history. They speak a world of languages. All of these women are immigrants with unique heritages, who have come to North America in search of a new life. In When Your Voice Tastes Like Home these women write about their lives back home, the journey here and the challenges of being an immigrant. Their stories resonate with joy, despair, sadness and strength.

David’s younger sister Ivy, born with multiple disabilities, needs constant attention. She may be eleven years old, but in many ways she’s still a baby. She embarrasses him in public. She takes all of their parents’ focus, to the point where David wonders if they see him as anything more than a helper for Ivy. But despite it all, he loves her. The summer days are following their usual pattern of taking care of his sister, doing chores, and trips to the cottage. The one exception is Hannah, the new girl across the street. Hannah makes David feel anything but routine.

Laura has just three weeks to go before her Jewish “coming of age” ceremony, called a Bat Mitzvah, when she is assigned a special project. She is to read the diary of Sara Gittler, a young girl her own age who was imprisoned by the Nazis in the Warsaw Ghetto during the Holocaust. Sara never had the chance to celebrate her coming of age, so Laura is to learn about Sara’s life and then share her Bat Mitzvah with her “twin” by speaking of her at the ceremony. Reluctant to undertake the project at first, Laura quickly becomes caught up by Sara’s struggle to survive.

Gladys Sage escaped the backwoods of Northern Ontario, leaving behind the body of her stepfather, to arrive in New York and the world of political revolutionaries. Hired to find her is Pinkerton detective James Kelly, a recent Irish immigrant mainly interested in easy money, drink, and women. Going undercover among the radical followers of Emma Goldman, James’ search for Gladdy becomes a passion that will affect the Kelly family for generations. Nawal Habib, James’ granddaughter, has reinvented herself as a devout Muslim.